Jimmy Alapag won the 2010-2011 Most Valuable Player Award of the PBA! If I were in Araneta Coliseum today and have witnessed the ceremony, I would have been crying right now or teary-eyed at least. I have been a fan for more than 6 years already, and I certainly believe he deserves the recognition.
I am probably one of the last persons you can expect to be a basketball fan. I was never a sports enthusiast. I hated those nights when my father watches a game and I can't tune in to my favorite primetime programs. And no matter how much I bargained with him, I couldn't win. A basketball game's "last 20 minutes" can go on for an hour, and when my father says, "only two minutes left," I know I have missed another full episode of the program I wanted to watch.
I was in sophomore year in high school when things changed. My seatmate back then was a Barangay Ginebra Kings fan since birth (he said so himself), and because we were always bantering I decided to root for the team BGK was against during the finals series of that time. It was Talk n Text. I watched the games, and even if Talk n Text did not win that championship, the little point guard of the team wearing jersey number 3 won my heart. HAHAHA.
I was not familiar with the rules of the game, nor the people in it, nor the roles they have to play. I simply watched the little guy who shoots from the rainbow county, makes great passes to defend the ball, and subtly assists his teammates to score field goals. I remember his "partnership" back then with Willie Miller, the two of them scoring and creating fastbreak plays for the team. It was really a delight watching them, Willie being a rather comic fellow. It was really a letdown when Willie was traded of to Alaska. But Jimmy stayed, and in the team, his role grew bigger as Talk n Text (like all the teams in the PBA) cope up with changes in the line-up, coaching staff, and rules.
I think my "fondness" for Jimmy (for lack of better word) is an example of how obsessive I can be when I like something or see a special worth in someone. I remember not missing a single game of the team, even if only just by watching on TV, competing with the rest of the family who didn't quite understand how I became a basketball fan overnight. I remember voicing out opinions through the mailing list under his name, cutting out and keeping pictures and news articles about him. I remember my how my high school classmates showed and gave me magazine articles and photos on Jimmy despite constantly chiding me for my unprecedented crush over a "short" basketball player. I even talked about him and the games in my letters to my friends, about how annoying the team lost, or how happy I am that he was (as always then) the player of the game. (I really want to read those letters again and laugh at myself, haha.)
In due time, though, I found other interests. But I always root for the team whenever it reaches the finals, or whenever I could catch a game on TV. I haven't memorized the names of the players (of all the teams) now, the way I used to. I actually miss the time when Jimmy's team was the underdog. I liked it better when the teams of the moguls financing the league is up against my Talk n Text that didn't seem to have a solid coaching staff, whose ace players were being traded-off, and so on.
The tables have turned now. Talk n Text seems to have one of the strongest line-ups in the league, and just two wins away from securing a grand slam legacy. Through the years, it was Jimmy (and okay, Coach Chot but Coach was not with TnT from the start so...) that kept the team together, mentored the new and younger players as they step up in their games.
Game by game, conference by conference, I think Jimmy had developed to be a dependable leader and Talk n Text wouldn't be Talk n Text without him. A player's worth isn't simply measured by the points he scored, or statistics in general after all.
The Mighty Mouse has always been the league's most valuable player for me, and this year's award is just another feather on his cap, though it's undoubtedly the brightest. Hihi.
I think I sound so much like a teenage girl romanticizing her crush... which I am (except for the former part</3). Haha.
No comments :
Post a Comment